


Like Nothing Out of Jane Austen, Ever

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Series: Tango Series [12]
Category: 30 Rock
Genre: Atlantic City, Crack, F/M, Happily Ever After, Marriage, Romantic Comedy, Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happily ever after is profoundly warped if this counts. That's just Liz's opinion, of course. Last in a series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Nothing Out of Jane Austen, Ever

Jenna would say, much later, that Liz’s engagement had been a wondrous adventure that had sparked a dozen screenplays and warmed a hundred hearts. Like something out of Jane Austen, she liked to chirp.

That was because Jenna wasn’t the one who had been lightly poisoned by Jack’s sister Patricia, or cut out of a Lemon family heirloom wedding dress, slowly suffocating as the lace collar cut off her oxygen, or arrested during Jack’s “last rampage” with Tracy because she’d kicked a stripper in the stomach a few times, or subjected to her mother’s nervous breakdown over time spent with Colleen Donaghy tasting cakes, or been offered fifty grand in cash by Devon in West Coast Programming to leave Jack, followed by a complicated scheme where Devon had tried to kidnap Liz to make Jack lose his cool and then ransom her for East Coast Television.

That had been averted when Tracy, Kenneth, and Jenna had accidentally found Liz, tied up and on her way to God-knew-where, trying to settle a bet over who could bend further, Tracy or Jenna.

They’d made her judge the contest before she was untied, and then Kenneth had knocked Devon down with an elbow to the face completely by accident.

Which alone made Liz’s engagement not at all Austenian, because seriously. Kidnapped by gay network executives? That was way more _Castle of Otranto_ -style melodrama. In the Jane Austen version, Colleen would have disapproved and tried to marry Liz off to the local vicar. Instead, Colleen had been the one to talk Liz down from her one serious bout of cold feet. Granted, it had been with a, “if you don’t get over your stupid panic and admit that you’re in love with Jack, I’ll have Patricia finish the job” kind of talk-down, but it had worked.

Also, nobody in Jane Austen got married in jeans and a Hello Kitty t-shirt by a Klingon in Vegas. They just didn’t. Especially not with “Walkin’ On Sunshine” playing in the background.

Really. You couldn’t make that up; _Entertainment Weekly_ would call it “forced whimsy and quirkiness served up in place of genuine emotion.”

But here she was. Liz Lemon was married and not yet forty and weirdly happy at her giant belated wedding reception that was being held at an all-you-can-eat buffet in Atlantic City, because where else would Jack and Liz have it? Especially because every time Liz peeked over at Jack, he made her feel butterfly-fluttery and full of ideas of how she was going to write sketches and maybe a screenplay or two that _wasn’t_ forced.

Frank was right; he was her man-muse. And Colleen was right, too; she loved him enough to ignore he voted Republican.

Right now, everyone was giving toasts, and Gretchen — Gretchen Thomas, Jack’s first attempt at making Liz happy, of all people — was starting hers.

“True story: Jack tried to set me up with his wife,” Gretchen began, winking at Liz. “It must have been, oh, less than a month after he got East Coast Television, and he calls me. And you know Jack when he’s got an Idea.”

That drew big chuckles from the crowd. Liz, who didn’t actually know this story because she and Gretchen had had some slight boundary issues for a long time, cocked her head at Jack curiously.

“You’ll like this one,” he said, sneaking a jalapeno cheddar popper, which he was so not supposed to have. “It flatters your ego.”

“Thomas,” Gretchen said, doing her best Jack-impression. “I’ve found your dream woman. She likes all those girl-power programs you enjoy, her taste in humor is crude, and the fashion-sense…well, your people aren’t known for it anyway.”

Liz rolled her eyes, though she could absolutely hear Jack saying that about her.

“My ego is _not_ flattered, Jack,” she whispered, spearing more french fries off his plate. He’d gone after her poppers, so this was only fair.

“Wait for it, Lemon,” Jack replied, and then did a slight double-take. “Should I keep calling you Lemon, by the way, or is that too weird?”

“And so I meet this woman, and well,” Gretchen laughed as Liz shrugged at her husband, who was making her miss the story. “I almost call Jack right then and there to promise to name my firstborn for him, because Jack knows me and he knows me big time. Of course, one look at Liz’s face when I introduced myself kind of ruined that fairy-tale.”

One of the benefits and problems of having all show-biz people as friends was the part where audience participation was totally going to happen, no matter what. The writer boys shouted out a huge, “awwwwww” in sympathy of Gretchen while Liz flushed and Jack winked at her.

“Maybe you should have asked me if I liked girls first, Donaghy,” Liz said, in a stage-murmur.

“You wear gay shoes,” Jack replied stoically, sparkling at Gretchen and Liz. “I’m not wrong about this.”

“Continuing on,” Gretchen said, raising her voice and smiling indulgently. “I was a little upset to find out that Liz was as straight a girl as I’d ever crushed on, so I called Jack to give him some crap. He apologized, of course. Jack is very gracious about these things.”

Liz snorted theatrically, and a few people chuckled lightly.

“You have to understand, Jack and I were drinking buddies when we worked together at GE, and we realized pretty early on we have similar taste in chicks,” Gretchen said. “So I said to him, ‘You gonna take a shot at her, then?’ and Jack just goes dead silent. ‘What are you talking about, Thomas?’ he asks. I point out that we dig on the same type of women, so it seemed natural he’d be all over her. And he just chokes, he’s laughing so hard.”

Liz fake-glowered at Jack, because this was in no way surprising to her, either. “Still not flattered,” she told him.

“Wait for it,” Jack repeated, squeezing her hand. Her hand that had the fancy diamond ring on it, the ring that announced to everyone that Liz Lemon was married now. Irrevocably and publicly married.

“Then — much later on — I saw those pictures in the Post where our friend Jack can’t keep his hands OFF Liz, and so I immediately had to give him some shit for that,” Gretchen said with an earthy chuckle. “‘So Donaghy,’ I say, ‘I remember you saying not even if you got Don Geiss’s job…’ and he cuts me off at the pass. ‘Thomas,’ says Jack. ‘I am rarely wrong, but in this case, you were by far the wiser man. I clearly set you up with my Elizabeth because I immediately recognized my attraction to her, but because of her mixed sexuality signals, decided to make a dear friend who would appreciate her happy instead. Would that I had listened to you sooner.'”

The girly side of the reception all made “awwwwww” noises now, as Toofer pretended to gag and Frank looked…oh, hello, was Frank crying? He was totally crying, and so was Cerie. Holy crap, weddings — or wedding receptions — made people act bizarre.

“Flattered now?” Jack asked, totally smug.

Colleen was right. Jack was unbearable when he was smug, and he’d been smug ever since he’d managed their escape to Vegas for their secret wedding.

“That was sweet, except for the part where you wouldn’t have fucked me with Devon’s dick to get Don Geiss’s job in the beginning,” Liz said, beaming at him with nasty intensity.

Jack called this her “evil housewife” act, where she went bubble-headed and fluttered her eyelashes a lot, smiling as she uttered mean, evil things like she was too stupid to know what they meant.

Drove Jack crazy, which Liz liked because Jack needed to be kept off-balance or he drove Liz crazy, which she liked a lot less.

“ _Details,_ ” Jack whispered as Gretchen raised her beer toward them, sneaking a quick kiss right underneath Liz’s earlobe.

Which Jack KNEW was a ticklish spot and not just ticklish, but sexy ticklish and he was so trying to one-up her for the evil housewife smirk.

“So let’s all hope that Jack and Liz don’t kill each other too quickly and deprive us of the entertainment that will be their marriage,” Gretchen said. “Cheers.”

Everyone clapped and cheered and Liz let herself enjoy it. Just a little. Because wow, she was married. And it wasn’t to a convenience husband or a gay guy who wanted a green card or anything.

“We need to get to the first dance of the evening soon,” Liz said, leaning over to murmur in Jack’s ear. “Because after all, I didn’t practice all that tango for nothing.”

“Patience,” Jack said, patting her hand. “We’ll do the ceremonial dancing soon, and then escape for our two-day honeymoon.”

Liz cringed. “That is _so long_ to be away from the set,” she whispered. “They might revert to cannibalism. I’m just saying.”

“Kenneth is wearing a wire. If you get too worried, we have a direct video feed on-set at all times,” Jack assured Liz. “Stop mothering your set for two days and enjoy this.”

Liz took a deep breath, thought of a retort…and then leaned against Jack instead, setting her head on his shoulder. Without even a sarcastic simper.

“Okay,” she said. “This is me enjoying. Make the nice people hurry it up so we can _enjoy_ our two days off as much as possible, k?”

What Jack replied…well, Liz noted that would never happen in a Jane Austen novel, either, even if she was getting the vaguely Jane Austen ending with the wedding and the older gentleman with money.

And Jack was vaguely Mr. Darcy-ish and maybe she was a little bit Lizzy Bennet and maybe the whole romance had a vague Pride-and-Prejudice resemblance and dag it all to heck, how could something with kidnappings by gay network executives still fit a nineteenth century fictional paradigm?

“Jenna is going to sing,” Jack murmured.

“What?” Liz said, coming out of her little space-out of happily-ever-after daze. “I told her no singing!”

Well, if this was happily ever after, it was twisted. That’s all Liz was going to say about it.


End file.
